Finance Committee on May 24th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Edmonton West, CPC]

Mr. Albas, thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Witnesses, thanks very much.

I find it interesting how many witnesses throughout the day have stated the need for more study of these. It's quite bizarre how some of these items, in what are clearly omnibus bills, are pushed in and all getting rolled up together.

Mr. Beauregard, I'd like to hear a bit from you, please. Oddly enough, in a past life, I was a chair of the EI appeals board here in Edmonton, so I understand a lot of the concerns. Would your organization like to, or are you pushing to, see a return to the old system straight out?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Mr. Beauregard, we're all ears.

[Luc Beauregard]

I'm sorry. To answer…

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Did you catch the question from MP McCauley?

[Luc Beauregard]

Yes. I believe he asked me whether we should return to the procedures in force prior to 2013. Is that correct?

[Kelly McCauley]

Basically, yes.

[Luc Beauregard]

Okay, thank you.

At the outset, you said that we had asked for more studies. We're not asking for more studies, but rather for a separate study, because the bill seriously limits...

[Kelly McCauley]

I commented on the general omnibus areas, but please go ahead.

[Luc Beauregard]

I'll get to the question you asked me.

A separate report is needed because this issue is becoming very important and affects a lot of Canadians.

Should we return to the previous system? We believe that the answer is yes. A genuine tripartite mechanism assumes having people who represent employers, employees and the government.

In addition, the part-time aspect is important for us, because people are assigned by group. A significant portion of the people represent the region at issue. Whereas in what is being proposed now, the region has no representation. It's more centralized.

[Kelly McCauley]

Can I interrupt, Mr. Beauregard. Do you see any advantages of the SST that could be carried over, if we revert back to the old system, such as perhaps in terms of the speed of hearing cases so that people are not waiting in limbo for so long? Or does it just need to be thrown out altogether and we start afresh?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Please give a very short answer, Mr. Beauregard.

[Luc Beauregard]

I don't think we have to start from scratch. Prior to 2013, it all worked. There were no long delays and there was a first level of appeal with a tripartite group, attended by people from the community who were familiar with employment insurance and that community.

We believe that the best option would be to return to what there was before.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Beauregard.

Thank you, Mr. McCauley.

Now we'll move to the Liberals. We have MP MacDonald for six minutes, please.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm going to go to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in regard to competitiveness and maybe to innovation a bit.

Over the past number of years, we've certainly seen many businesses complain to governments, provincial and federal, relevant to interprovincial trade barriers. When we're talking about competitiveness, I believe that's a huge issue. I'm wondering, Mr. Agnew, if you have any advice for policy-makers on how we increase or better adapt to competitiveness from province to province within Canada and, I guess, get our own house in order before we start worrying about international trade.

[Mark Agnew]

Yes, I'll try to tackle that as best I can. It's a thoroughly broad question that probably behooves several committee meetings to discuss.

I think the one overarching point I would want to make about it is that when we talk to companies, it's easy for us as policy-makers and people here in the Ottawa bubble to really get caught up on what this level of government is doing, what this silo of government is doing and what that department is doing. It might be three levels of government, but it's one company at the end of the day.

It has to bear the cumulative burden of these things, whether it's on tax decisions, regulatory decisions or the ability to attract talent from both within and outside of the country, or having a much more robust economic competitiveness perspective to how taxes are done, and what the impact is going to be on business competitiveness when we pass a new regulation, and what it means for businesses.

I could sit here all afternoon and list the things that people aren't happy with and where they want to see change in the agriculture sector or the digital economy. It's quite a long list of things, but maybe to bridge back to some of the stuff we're talking about in the context of the budget implementation act, this is where there's a need to make sure we get it right the first time. Unfortunately, some of these competition provisions require a more deliberative approach, and competition policy is one of those things that affects the competitiveness of the environment in which businesses operate.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you.

I'm going to move, Chair, to Access Copyright and Ms. Levy.

You mentioned the 2012 Copyright Modernization Act, which I'm not familiar with, but it's better to know where we're coming from to get to where we going. Can you talk a bit about the demise of that act or why it was eliminated or changed?

[Roanie Levy]

The 2012 Copyright Modernization Act included quite a few amendments. It was a massive bill. Specifically to “fair dealing”, education was added to fair dealing so that uses can be made of works for educational purposes as long as they are fair.

The intent of the change was never to have education institutions stop paying for the copying they were doing. In fact, many representatives of the education community came before the legislative committee and said that they would not stop paying, that they would continue paying and they would continue buying books.

Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Immediately, within weeks of the act coming into force, educational institutions stopped paying for the copying of the books and essentially decided to do the copying for free under the rubric of fair dealing.

The idea of fairness—what is fair and what is not fair—is where the rubber hits the road, and it gets super complicated. We then end up in court for years and years.

The surest way to solve this problem is to provide more parameters around fair dealing and to do what the U.K., Ireland and New Zealand have done, which also have fair dealing for educational purposes. What they've done is that they've limited the ability to rely on fair dealing by educational institutions when a work is available under licence, either through a collective or through the rights holders.

Students can continue relying on fair dealing for the use of reasonable portions of works, but when a work is being copied in a massive and systematic way by an educational institution, that would be the subject of a licence, when a licence is available. It ensures that the market is able to function, while also ensuring that students and educators have access to works in a reasonable and cost-efficient way.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you.

Has there ever been a crossover or have you ever looked into intellectual property regulations that have been presented to see if there's any just cause or relation in that regard?

[Roanie Levy]

Unfortunately, you can't have regulations under that provision. It requires a legislative amendment to be done. That is the only way to set this straight.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you.

I know I don't have much time left, but where there are national security or business innovation implications with foreign countries, in particular, and possibly hostile foreign countries, do you see any risks relevant to that in your business?

[Roanie Levy]

No, there is no relation to that scenario.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you.

Do I have much—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you. That's about it.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Chair.